programmers -- the question that is to never be asked

[Darren Dirt]

Apparently if someone gets to the point of realizing "I come to work every day with no passion I just do it to pay the bills. I have done some good projects but I am not at all into it." it's tough to break free of the Hive.

Ask that serious question seriously, and good luck -- it's tough to get a straight answer to... through "normal" channels i.e. the most popular communities of programmers.


"what career options are available to programmers who no longer want to program?" (after all, unless you are okay with constant frustration and/or a slow dip into complete full-blown insanity, "Programming is indeed a field that does require some passion." ... but based on our collective longevity in IT overall, apparently most/all of us here DO have a passion for this highly-ranked career)

[Thorin]

The real question is not what career options are available to programmers that don't want to program anymore, but rather what career options that pay a similar wage.  It's hard to switch to a different career that pays one-third to one-half of your current income, so that significantly reduces the possibilities.

[Lazybones]

The real question is not what career options are available to programmers that don't want to program anymore, but rather what career options that pay a similar wage.  It's hard to switch to a different career that pays one-third to one-half of your current income, so that significantly reduces the possibilities.

There are a few logical options but they have prerequisites:

- Technical Sales representative (would have to have the people skills to pull this off)
- IT technical position, you may be able to leverage DB knowledge to become a DBA or Web admin of some kind
- IT Management (not for everyone)

[Mr. Analog]

So far in my career I've found that making lateral moves between companies has been a great way of killing the blahs

But I can't speak for you, the question you need to ask is what does Darren want to do?

[Lazybones]

So far in my career I've found that making lateral moves between companies has been a great way of killing the blahs

But I can't speak for you, the question you need to ask is what does Darren want to do?

There is that as well.. it is one sure fire way to escape a boring maintenance code project. Moving to a company in a different industry will also present new challenges.

[Darren Dirt]

in answer to Mr. A: bang on a drum all day, obviously!

But in the meantime I'll just shut my big yap (and stay at a job that I actually do feel passion about, maybe a dozen days out of any given month  )




ps: for T-Bone, my agenda for this thread is that I simply found it 'curious' that some of the better known communities for developers apparently make a "not sure if this is my ideal career" seeker of life betterment feel... unwelcome. Or at least alone in their misery, i.e. "sorry buddy, you're on your own with that feeling... Good luck with all that! [/SeinfeldToCostanza]"


At least that was the jist I got from the linked article's opening few paragraphs, which the author followed up with some possibly helpful info. BUT this thread wasn't a sign of a mid-life career crisis or a veiled cry for my own personal assistance or something. At least not at the current time.

[Mr. Analog]

To be honest I've never witnessed the kind of hostility in the linked article, when it comes up the conversation is supportive usually.

I do wonder how happy you are at work though sometimes

This isn't the first time you've talked about career change so I'm sure you can understand why most of us made the logical leap. I'm glad you are happy though.

So far in my career I've found that making lateral moves between companies has been a great way of killing the blahs

But I can't speak for you, the question you need to ask is what does Darren want to do?

There is that as well.. it is one sure fire way to escape a boring maintenance code project. Moving to a company in a different industry will also present new challenges.

Exactly as well it can just be interesting to do something different and get paid bigger bux for it too :-)

[Thorin]

ps: for T-Bone, my agenda for this thread is that I simply found it 'curious' that some of the better known communities for developers apparently make a "not sure if this is my ideal career" seeker of life betterment feel... unwelcome.

Yeah...  I didn't question the agenda for this thread and I posted something that was entirely within the obvious (and then re-stated) agenda for this thread.  In this case it was Mr. A reading more into your starting of this thread.

Back on track, there are several careers that haven't been considered yet in this thread:
- quality assurance engineer (high-end tester); ours need to know how to program automated tests these days
- business analyst; being able to analyze is good even when not turning money into code
- product owner; technical knowledge helps understand developers, but this career does require you to learn how to interpret customer desires
- dev manager; this will require you to switch from the don't-interrupt-me schedule to the constant-interruptions schedule, though

So far in my career I've found that making lateral moves between companies has been a great way of killing the blahs

I think I've done this more often than you

[Mr. Analog]

Actually I think things got derailed before I got here, I think the original post was more about some bad experience some people had discussing career changes within the world of programmers,it just wasn't all that clear (unless I'm reading the article post wrong?)

On THAT topic I have to say it sounds stereotypical but certainly not something I've seen first hand, something you might experience in any profession with a lot of egos around ;-)

On the first pass reading of your summary the example was given in first person so I can understand how we got so derailed in the first place